New York Knicks defeat Golden State Warriors

OAKLAND -- Stephen Curry wished he could have another chance at the final possession that failed, but the last-second turnover wasn't Warriors coach Mark Jackson's main concern.

Jackson pinned the Warriors' 89-84 loss to New York on Sunday squarely on a second-quarter defensive lapse when his team surrendered 34 points, including a 15-0 Knicks run headed into halftime.

"We don't look at what cost us the game offensively," Jackson said. "You're going to make or miss shots. What cost us the game was giving them 34 points in the second quarter. That's not our brand of defense."

With the short-handed Warriors defense suffering a letdown and the offense struggling to a 35.4 percent shooting percentage, Golden State fell yet again at home to an Eastern Conference team struggling to make the playoffs.

Curry scored 22 of his 32 points in the second half in trying to lead the comeback. But with the ball in his hands and the Warriors trailing by three points with five seconds left, he thought twice about shooting while heavily defended by New York's Raymond Felton and saw his pass to Draymond Green stolen.

"If I could do it over, I'd probably just find a way to shoot it regardless," said Curry, who also missed a last-minute 3-point attempt with a chance to tie.

J.R. Smith led New York with 21 points, and Carmelo Anthony came through with big points late in the game to finish with 19 in helping the Knicks in their fight for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

Advertisement

Klay Thompson had 15 points and nine rebounds while struggling in going 3 for 11 from 3-point range. He did connect from long range to close the deficit to 85-84 with 1:03 left, but the Warriors were unable to score in the final minute.

Until Curry hit a wide-open 3-pointer from the corner to tie the score at 81 with 2:42 left, the Warriors had spent the second half playing from behind thanks to a disastrous second quarter.

New York stunned the Oracle Arena crowd, scoring the final 15 points of the quarter to take a 56-44 lead into halftime. The Knicks scored 34 points in the quarter, and even though New York managed only 33 for the rest of the game, the Warriors lost.

"That's what happens when you put yourself in that position to have to make plays down the stretch," Jackson said. "This game should have been won early by the way we started to set the tone. We gave them life."

The Warriors scored only 12 points in the second to match their lowest-scoring quarter of the season after having led by as many as 12 points in the first quarter.

The Warriors had crushed the Knicks by 23 points last month at Madison Square Garden, but this Warriors team was without their starting frontcourt of Andrew Bogut and David Lee.

Bogut missed the game with a pelvic/groin contusion that is expected to keep him sidelined for at least two more games, according to Jackson. An MRI exam revealed no structural damage, with Jackson saying that Bogut's day-to-day status was "great news."

Lee missed a second straight game because of a strained right hamstring, taking the Warriors' top two rebounders out of their lineup.

Jermaine O'Neal started in Bogut's place and had eight points and 12 rebounds, but the Warriors gave up 34 New York points in the paint. Injuries forced Green into playing center for long stretches and guarding the likes of Anthony and Amare Stoudemire, who added 15 points.

"It's tough," Green said. "Andrew is a great piece of what we do. It's going to be tough, but we've had times this year where we got it done, and we can get it done."

With Bogut hurt, Santa Cruz center Hilton Armstrong was signed to a second 10-day contract and joined the team for his third stint of the season.